Category Archives: Uncategorized

My next book, The Reborn, is now with the publisher. The edits are finished, and it’s ready to go. The book is coming out on April 11, 2014, and I hope you will check it out. It’s different from everything I’ve done before, but I also think it may be my best. Here’s the Goodreads page, if you want to add it to your To Read pile. I’ll keep you up to date as things develop.

This time last year, I was on my way to Singapore. When you think of Singapore, you probably think of enterprise and money. You’d be, well, on the money.

Singapore is one of the world’s great business centers. It is, in many ways, America without the Bill of Rights and pesky government interference with industry. Personal liberty is not particularly valued in the great city-state. Freedom of speech is non-existent, punishments for crime are harsh, and chewing gum is illegal.

But economically, Singapore is one of the freest countries in the world. All you need to know about Singapore is nicely summed up in an episode of The Pupil, Singapore’s version of Law & Order, that we watched while waiting for the flight to Thailand. The prosecutor, in classic Jack McCoy fashion, extolled the court that the accused could not go free. His offense struck Singapore to its very core, and was a betrayal of everything the nation stood for. His crime? Was it murder? Rape? Human Trafficking?

Nope.

Bribery. And, as the show made sure we knew, Singapore is the least corrupt country in the world. Even on television, it’s always business, business, business.

Personally, though, I was more interested in Singapore’s more…cultural offerings, particularly the famous Raffles Hotel Long Bar.

Raffles is one of the finest hotels in the world–well out of my price range. But its long bar is also the birthplace of one of the world’s finest drinks.

And for only $30, you can have your own Singapore Sling.

All and all, a fun night in Singapore. But the trip really began at the next stop–Krabi, Thailand.

My journey began in Hong Kong, where, after a sixteen hour flight from Chicago, I met up with my very good friends, Wallace and Mayu. At the time, they were living up the ex-pat life, residing in an apartment in Discovery Bay with a nightly view of Hong Kong Disney’s fireworks show.

Hong Kong was, for the most part, a port in the traveling storm, a place to adjust from the massive and unforgiving jet-lag that accompanies a trip where entire days vanish. And while I would recommend that any traveler visit Hong Kong at least once, there isn’t all that much to recommend it. My favorite part might have been the raccoon in the city zoo.

Apparently, we call them Washing Bears.

Which isn’t to say that Hong Kong isn’t an impressive city. Seen from Mount Victoria, the highest peak in the region, it’s stunning to believe that such a large metropolis was more or less carved from the rock.

It also has its share of strange Chinese-to-English translations, like this Burger King where you can get a Heineken and “Mexican Drum Sticks,” whatever that is.

And occasionally, you run into a friendly face…

Hong Kong, however, was only the beginning, the gateway into a much grander adventure. Next stop, Singapore!

Hong Kong at night

One year ago today, I left Birmingham, Alabama to begin a journey that would take me across 29,853 miles and through fourteen countries on a trip around the world. Over the next several weeks, I am going to chronicle that journey here, with pictures, just for you. I hope you enjoy.

Siberia

Something completely different today. As most of you know, I spend a lot of my time reading horror. But I’m also always on the lookout for literary fiction that has a heart. The Time Regulation Institute by Ahment Hamdi Tanpinar is just such a book.

How this book came to be published in English is almost as interesting as the story itself. Released 50 years ago in Turkey, The Time Regulation Institute has been rediscovered and translated into English for a new generation and a new audience. There’s a lesson there for writers, readers, and all of society. Literature is timeless, and it can speak to us in different ways throughout the decades. Here’s the synopsis.

Old Istanbul aristocrats, Turkish teashops, imperial diamonds, and great and humble mosques are juxtaposed with the almost non-descriptive portrayals of neighborhood friendships, family relations, and local public figures who could be found in any city in Turkey or, perhaps, any Eastern setting where the old way of life adopts new and Western counterparts. Ahmet H. Tanpinar’s portrayal of modern, post-Ottoman Turkey weaves a theater of the absurd, suggestively representative of the early days of the young Republic. This translation is introduced by an essay by the late Berna Moran, a leading Turkish literary critic.

The Time Regulation Institute is an ironic and biting satire of a period in Turkish history where Turkey was locked between the old world of the Ottoman Empire and the new world of the West. Much as Turkey still straddles two continents and multiple cultures, the Turkey of the 1930s straddled two ways of life, as different and incompatible as one could imagine. The shock of that transition–with the rise of new bureaucracies and even a new language–forms the basis of the story in The Time Regulation Institute. It’s hard to adequately describe the plot of The Time Regulation Institute. Just take my word for it–you won’t find a more beautifully written book, which is a credit to the translator as well as the author, and you will get a great look into a culture you probably don’t know that much about.

4 Stars

P.S. I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review, and is my policy, I’d like to give it away to one of my lucky readers if they will also post a review on Amazon and Goodreads. So, the first person to email me about it gets the book!

2013 Top Ten In Horror List

Thanks to everyone for an amazing 2013!

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 150,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Listed below, in no particular order, are my favorite reads of 2013. Some of these books were published last year. Others have been around for a while. They are all, in my view, worthy of the highest praise.

1. The Immortal Body by William Holloway — One of the best Lovecraftian books I have ever read, Holloway creates a world of cosmic horror that would have chilled the blood of Lovecraft himself. Holloway has a new book coming out soon–The Song of the Death God–that is even better.

2. High Moor 2: Moonstruck by Graeme Reynolds–With this high-octane followup to my favorite werewolf book of all time, Reynolds has set the bar high for the final book in the series. No pressure or anything…

3. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon–Spinning away from horror for a moment, this was a terrific little book that I enjoyed far more than I expected. Not an easy read, but worth the effort.

4. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel–Beautiful. Challenging. Engrossing. Uplifting. Confusing. All of these words could be used to describe Kafka on the Shore, but there is one that I think can’t be denied–masterpiece.

5. Steel Breeze by Douglas Wynne–A brilliant story of death, revenge and redemption that grabs hold from word one and does not let go. Proof positive that Wynne’s fantastic Devil of Echo Lake was no fluke.

6. Special Dead by Patrick Freivald–Another sequel that I loved, Frievald is writer with a delicious and devilish wit who deserves a look by any fan of horror.

This is pretty much how it went.

Seventeen years after the end of the Great War, twenty-five after A-Day, and the Shepherds are out hunting…

Coming Spring, 2014.

It’s that time of year, and I’ve been busy submitting recs for the HWA’s Bram Stoker Awards. I was on the Long Fiction Jury in 2012, so this year I tried to read anything but long fiction. Some of the books I’ve recommended include the fabulous sequel to High Moor, High Moor 2: Moonstruck. I thought the first one was amazing and was shocked when the sequel was even better. If you haven’t read it, do so, whether you are in the HWA or not. Another sequel I loved was the YA novel Special Dead, the brain-blasting follow-up to Twice Shy. I also loved Steel Breeze, the non-sequel offering from Doug Wynne. In the first novel category, Whisper by Michael Bray got a rec. A truly creepy haunted house story—and you know how I love those.

I hope you will check out some of these great books, and if you have something up for the Stoker Award, shoot me an email if you want me to check it out. Can’t guarantee a rec, of course, but I can promise you I’ll read it with great interest.

I’ve also got my own offering up for the Stoker this year—The Sacrifice, a long-fiction piece from the shared-world anthology, Limbus, Inc. If you want to read The Sacrifice or any of the wonderful stories from Limbus, Inc., just let me know and I will get you the PDF. 

Coming 2014…

I gotta say, on this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for this roller coaster ride I’ve been on these last few years.

“The world is a stage, life is a play, and we are the puppets. It’s better not to ask who pulls the strings.”

How lucky do you feel?

That question echoed through the world’s underground, scrawled on bathroom walls, spray-painted across subway tunnel exits, written on paper that fluttered through bleak side-streets in the winter wind, printed on cheap business cards tacked to corkboard displays in darkened hallways. But always beneath one name—Limbus.

Matthew Sellers revealed the truth of Limbus, Inc. to the world, and in his tales of time travelers, intergalactic beings, and human sacrifice, he thought he had told it all. But the story of the shadowy employment agency that operates on the edge of the abyss, always finding the perfect person for the perfect job—no matter what the cost—had only begun.

This shared-world anthology continues the story of Limbus, Inc., as told by five masters of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. But beware, for once you learn the truth of Limbus, Inc., your world will never be the same. So it’s time to ask yourself . . .

How lucky do you feel?

Coming Spring 2014…

I hope that one day I can bring as much joy to people’s lives as this guy does in two minutes. The best part is when he is sitting there getting ready to start. And the hugging people as he walks down the steps. Just amazing. World needs more of this stuff. Man, I miss Boston.